afară

Forms

afară^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ad forās (“to the outside”), a phrase of ad (“to”) and forās (“out of doors”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Candrea and Densusianu wrote the Latin group as *afforās.^[6] The older Romanian form was afoară, which MDA2 lists as an old variant and Wiktionary gives as the source of the modern one.^[4][1] Candrea and Densusianu explain the change from ⟨oa⟩ to ⟨a⟩ by the word's frequent unstressed use before de.^[6] The second word was the accusative of an old word for “door”, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwer- (“door”).^[1]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian afoarã, Megleno-Romanian nafară and Istro-Romanian afårę.^{[2][3][7][8][9]} Ciorănescu compares Italian fuori, Old French afors, Spanish afuera and Portuguese afora.^[2] He notes that the sense “except”, which needs the same preposition after it, is Romance as well, like fuori di and fuera de.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of about 1500, where the word means “outside” or “out”.^[3] The psalter has it twice, in Psalms 30 and 40 of its numbering, and the later 16th-century psalters keep it in the same verses.^[10] MDA2 dates its first record to the Codicele Voronețean of about 1563.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word served both for place and for direction: Tiktin glosses it as German “draußen” and “hinaus”, “outside” and “out”.^[11] With verbs it forms set phrases: a da afară “to throw out”, then “to exclude” and “to dismiss from a post”, and a ieși afară “to go out”, also a euphemism for relieving oneself.^[4][5][12] MDA2 also records the old sense of a da afară “to make public”.^[4]

The phrase (în) afară de “except, apart from” goes back to the use with de.^[2][5] Din cale-afară means “beyond measure”.^[5] The derivative dinafară gave the phrase pe dinafară “by heart”, recorded in 1844.^[3] In Aromanian afoarã also means “in the mountains”, the place of shepherds and outlaws.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1500 – afară in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[3][13]
• c. 1563 – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[4][11]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1844 – pe dinafară “by heart”.^[3]

Meanings

Adverb

1. outside: beyond the limits of a closed or nearby space; out of doors: Copiii se joacă afară.^[5][4][1]
2. With verbs of motion, out: a ieși afară “to go out”, a da afară “to throw out; to dismiss”.^[5][4]
3. In (în) afară de: except, apart from; besides: Au venit toți, afară de Ion.^[5]
4. Used as an interjection: get out!^[5]

Word family

• dinafară

Related words

• fără
• Aromanian afoarã
• Latin forās

Usage notes

Afară numai dacă means “unless”.^[5] Din cale-afară or afară din cale means “exceedingly”.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. afară
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. afară
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 23
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 18
6. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
7. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 62
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 24
9. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 201
10. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 40:7
11. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. afară
12. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 75
13. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 30:15
14. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. afară